The year is 2023 and the website building process has never been easier. However, the choice between Wix or Weebly is still a tricky one for individuals or businesses that are looking to develop an online presence.
As industry-leading website builders, Wix and Weebly have a lot in common; both platforms are excellent global tools with impressive reputations built to offer digital solutions for business or personal web page budgets.
But despite their similar goals, Wix and Weebly achieve them by adopting different approaches. Each web builder comes with key strengths and weaknesses you should know about before deciding on which one to use.
A quick overview isn’t sufficient to assess which is the ideal platform for your website. But if you stick around until the conclusion of our in-depth Wix vs Weebly comparison, we’ll show you how each one performs in real-world situations just like we did with our Shopify vs Wix case study.
Let’s get started with the details!
Weebly vs Wix: Comparison. Which is Better?
Welcome to the latest in our Weebly vs Wix vs WordPress guide series where we highlight key consideration areas such as pricing, templates & design, SEO capabilities, and more to increase your knowledge on the pros and cons of using each website building platform.
Wix vs Weebly Pricing
Affordability is a common concern for most people who want to know more about website builders and our Weebly pricing vs Wix comparison revealed that both platforms offer unlimited free plans for users.
You could choose to continue using the Wix or Weebly free plans as a project portfolio site before you have to pay for a live domain. Note, however, that the plans are ad-supported.
Wix paid plans are divided into 2 main categories for business and personal websites. Each subsequent plan and price upgrade offers advanced features along with varied online marketing options and restrictions.
Weebly offers a cheap Personal option that allows users to add their domain name. Unfortunately, however, this limited offer comes with pop-up advertising and is only available for 1 month.
In contrast, Weekly’s free plans include an online store that you can sample before you opt for any of the available eCommerce plans.
Also unlike Wix, Weebly's paid plans are not categorized into eCommerce and Personal. The platform offers just 5 separate plans that come with distinct feature sets
In most cases, Weebly’s 12 USD monthly Professional plan or Wix’s 14 USD monthly Combo plan should easily suffice as they both enable full-featured user access.
Though more expensive, Wix is the overall cost-effective choice for the Weebly vs Wix pricing aspect of our comparison as we discovered it offers more features.
Ease of Use
We’d like to begin this next aspect of our Wix vs Weebly alternative comparison by saying their advertising doesn’t lie because both web-building platforms are well known for their ease of use. You can get started after just a few minutes.
Weebly and Wix adopt a drag-and-drop website building approach which makes the entire process quite straightforward. Once you’ve created a user account, you only need to select any of the available templates and then you can start moving website elements around until you’re satisfied with the outcome.
However, not all drag-and-drop website building tools are created the same. Simplicity is the most essential requirement for setting up and editing a website to suit your purposes.
With Wix, you’ll require just a few seconds to get started after signing up with Facebook, Google, or email. Wix comes with dual website editors. The first is an AI-driven Wix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), while the second is an advanced, highly customizable Classic Editor.
You can use Wix’s ADI algorithm to generate a business website based on user-generated data. And while you can't edit its elements, it offers a simple website creation method.
The Classic Wix Editor comes with over 700 themes and template designs which you can customize to meticulous detail. Wix lets you do considerably more in a short time.
Weebly on the other hand has a single website editor that was built to serve as an intuitive and straightforward drag-and-drop site-building solution. Also, the templates you’ll find here offer more consistency and structure which makes things easier if you decide to change them later by allowing you to switch designs. However, this can also limit your website’s creative visual options.
Overall, total beginners tend to prefer Wix’s straightforward drag-and-drop experience to Weebly’s especially because of its increased flexibility and effortless template personalization.
Wix Templates vs Weebly Templates
Up next is our in-depth comparison of Weebly vs Wix diverse design and template philosophies.
A good website builder should typically help you get started with a theme selection that matches your intent. Weebly and Wix offer general website themes for people looking to advertise their business or host their personal portfolio.
Wix offers you complete control over approximately 700 themes spread across broad Blog, Business, and Education categories. You are sure to discover a design that matches your particular needs in this vast collection whatever your website’s purpose.
Aside from letting you rearrange and customize web page elements, the Wix Editor also allows you to add images, videos, background animations, and external fonts. You even get to pick from industry-focused templates for your online photography store, music portfolio, fashion boutique, restaurant, and more.
Weebly users, in contrast, have just 40 tailored theme options to choose from under categories such as Blog, Personal, and Online Store. Weebly’s collection of attractive and modern themes will undoubtedly impress your online customers or website visitors. Each template and theme you’ll find here boasts of a responsive design to ensure effortless adjustments to mobile or desktop devices.
Weebly generally offers similar design results, but with limited scope for exploration. Unlike Wix, its website templates are more structured, rigid, and gridlocked, which means you can’t rearrange web page elements as you wish.
Wix has the upper hand here due to its limitless design flexibility.
Wix vs Weebly Customer Support
Wix and Weebly come with live chat, phone, online forums, and tutorial support for when you need help with getting out of a tight spot. You can also choose to harass their representatives for answers via Twitter or Facebook.
Weebly however, gets extra points for including their Contact Us info which includes a working phone number and email address.
Overall, it was difficult to distinguish which service had the upper hand in this aspect of our comparison especially since Wix also makes it easier for you to find relevant answers quickly in their FAQ section.
Wix Editor vs Weebly Editor
The editor is an essential website builder component. It gives you the ability to create your desired digital space with minimal effort all while maintaining the best web-building industry practices.
As mentioned earlier in our Wix vs Weebly comparison, both platforms are drag-and-drop website builders. They facilitate an effortless creation and customization process with straightforward editing operations that require little technical expertise.
The Wix drag-and-drop editor lets you customize your website by simply moving page elements around and placing them wherever suits your vision.
There’s also a mobile Wix editor available to manage web page elements for desktop or mobile viewers. The only drawback here is that they don’t always align perfectly so you may end up having to rearrange some elements manually.
Unlike Wix’s flexible drag-and-drop approach, Weebly users must utilize a rigid, more structured system that enables them to drag elements and lock them in place across different parts of their web pages. Your design options are constrained further on Weebly as the editor will automatically format your changes for use on mobile and desktop and mobile.
Overall, Wix presents you with more unique customization offerings than Weebly. However, if you prefer an uncomplicated and regular web page setup process, then the Weebly Editor is perfect for you.
Weebly vs Wix Ecommerce
Both website builders provide robust tools and features for online store support but we discovered that Weebly’s offerings are more eCommerce-oriented than Wix’s.
Wix is undoubtedly an excellent tool for small online businesses. Its robust visual product presentation makes it easier for you to sell physical or digital goods online. However, the consistent tool and feature updates on Weebly help to strengthen the builder’s eCommerce capabilities. Weebly’s recent advancements mean it currently offers eCommerce solutions of stronger proportions to Wix’s which is a clear indication of their future service focus.
Wix Apps vs Weebly Apps/Widgets
Wix and Weebly prioritize their collection of available apps for making impressive website upgrades. These must-have software tools and plugins will enable you to add handy features to your site to improve overall performance and generate better analytics,
Wix and Weebly come with hundreds of impressive apps and plugins for improved website optimization that will enable you to fully engage visitors and potential customers. You’ll also discover a few of them are free.
Furthermore, Wix and Weebly constantly upgrade their app markets by providing new software ideas and tools for equipping your digital space with booking abilities, social feeds, FAQs, live community forums, and other functional capabilities.
The significant difference here is that Weebly’s App Store isn’t as comprehensive as the Wix App Market. And aside from third-party apps, Wix also boasts a quality collection of internally developed software (such as Wix Hotels, Wix Restaurants, and Wix Bookings, etc).
Weebly vs Wix SEO
Your builder of choice must work optimize your website by aligning your digital campaigns with best practices on popular search engines such as Google and Bing. When done properly, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will result in the higher placements or online search results rankings needed to drive increased website traffic.
Weebly and Wix provide in-built SEO assistance for kick-starting your website optimization.
With Weebly, you get multiple SEO guides complete with a beginners’ checklist for modifying web page titles, URL names, meta descriptions, and more. It also assists with performing keyword research and integrating the best online marketing practices with your website.
Aside from URL personalization, adding meta descriptions, titles, and other web page attributes, the Wix builder also allows you to automatically generate local sitemaps for use on your website.
And while resolving SEO intricacies is better left to the internet geeks, the Wix builder takes the lead here by making the setup process easier for newbies and offering a few more options.
Wix vs Weebly Blogging
This next section of our Wix vs Weebly comparison will help to identify which website builder fares better at earning blog views. Blogging regularly ranks among the top ways to gain an audience and drive website traffic.
Weebly and Wix offer improved blogging features. However, we quickly discovered that Weebly dominates in this department.
By allowing you to add similar page elements that blend seamlessly with the rest of your website, the Weebly builder can serve as the perfect blogging platform. Moreover, you’ll feel right at home with adding text, images, and the occasional Weebly digital downloads to your blog posts especially if you’re already familiar with using the builder.
The Wix editor offers a pleasant blog editing experience. Sadly, however, it doesn't integrate as well as with the other website components. The external window display makes the process of inserting media and text rather tricky.
Weebly is undoubtedly the better blogging option as the support system further enables you to consistently create more complex blog post layouts.
Conclusion
Here ends the latest in our WordPress vs Wix vs Weebly comparison series.
Weebly and Wix are top-notch choices for anyone looking to build an online presence. After taking a closer look at their pricing, ease of use, templates, design features, and digital marketing capabilities, we’ve concluded that you should base your final selection on those characteristics you value the most.
Is Wix Worth Your Money?
Wix is a versatile website builder and an excellent choice for beginners, small online businesses, and creative designers. Its collection of user-friendly tools, help, and support features, offer great value for your money.
Is Weebly Worth Your Money?
Weebly comes highly recommended for online portfolio and eCommerce purposes. It’s the ideal builder for people who prefer a more web page design approach. However, its template designs are not customizable so we don’t recommend using Weebly if you can’t code.
Here’s hoping our Weebly vs Wix review has helped you to identify which website builder is best for you.